Amide polymers are an important class of materials. A few of the most well know amide polymer systems include Nylon® and Kevlar®. Kevlar® is an aromatic polyamide, a class of materials commonly referred to as aramids. Aramids have a number of applications for making lightweight, high strength durable materials, including flame resistant materials, high impact resistant materials and chemically resistant materials. Kevlar® fibers, for example, can be mixed with resins and binders that are coated onto surfaces or are woven into fabrics to provide additional strength and durability to the surfaces or fabrics.
While the presently available polyamide materials have numerous uses and continue to show promise to advance the state of the art for highly durable materials, there are several shortcomings. Kevlar® fibers, for example, can be extremely difficult to separate due to a high degree of inter-molecular attraction that results from inter-molecular hydrogen bonding and stacking of the aromatic groups in these materials. Also, while there has been a tremendous amount of development in the area of making new polyamide materials, the compositions of materials that can be formed using traditional methods has been limited by structural considerations, such as discussed in detail below. Accordingly, there is a need to develop new methods of making polyamide materials that can span a larger range of compositions and physical properties and that can be tailored for specific applications.